Count Witold’s men made easy enough targets. Many of his household men-at-arms had already gone to war. Most of the newcomers were recent conscriptions and they were about as green as one could get. There were knights, too, and groups of sellswords—mostly the Bloody Gorjes—but the majority were boys plucked from the fields by their eager lords, handed axes or spears and told they were to be sent off to defend the Empire. If most could even tell her which end was supposed to go in the other man, she might have very well been impressed.
“Anything interesting?” Fallit’s eyes gave her a quick once over. He did not even try to hide it. He always liked to see her in her leathers. One of the few, it often seemed.
“A wolf is all. The beastly sort.” She handed her quiver off to Finn and her spyglass to Garen. They always shared. Captain’s orders. Matair was not as wealthy a family as others, and they did not have the coin to pay for “waste.” It made conservation interesting, at times. “You?”
Fallit shook his head. “Not a thing. Nearly lost a leg to one of Benner’s traps, though. Old coot’s overdoing himself.”
He was not the only one. Most of the farmers had been growing nervous since the first armed men arrived in town. War was near at hand and when the soldiers left, so too would the bulk of the protection Lord Kasimir was supposed to provide them. When the number of soldiers dropped, the numbers of bandits had a tendency to rise. Once the troops left, the farmers would have to fend for themselves.
Unfortunately, farmers were not trappers. At least one furious rancher had already come before Lord Kasimir screaming bloody murder about the mess one such trap had made of one of his horse’s legs. In the end, Matair had sent another of his rangers back with the farmer to find and removed half of the traps, but it was only a matter of time before more incidents occurred.
When people got scared, it was never the ones that frightened them who suffered. It was their neighbors, or their children, or even the innocent traveler. She did not envy the men who would have to stay behind and sort such messes out. Not that she was particularly pleased at the thought of going to war, either, but she trusted their lord to lead them true.
By the grace of Assal above. May you light our darkest hour.
By the time they arrived in town, she was spoiling for a bite to eat. Fallit teased her about it. “Your stomach will grow as wide as a bear’s one day.” He was half the reason the men had taken to calling her “the little bear.” It was a step above “cub,” at least, which she had outgrown the day she stole Matair’s youngest back from bandits.
Three arrows. Three dead. A mace to the hip and a mess of broken bones. Roswitte was not destined for beauty, but it had earned her some respect and a handsome bow from a grateful lord. That was all she needed out of life.
They ate, they drank and they left. Fallit eased a hand around her backside when she stooped to snatch a copper he dropped, but she rounded on him as soon as he gave her a squeeze, and put his back to the wall. He merely laughed it off, and soon so did she. It was one of the necessities of a life among such men. If she could not take the humor, then they could not take her.
“I’m keeping the coin, you know.” She eased in alongside him, sucking the taste of fish off her fingers as she waited for him to catch his breath. Easing back to his feet, the man shot her a wry grin, one hand rubbing at his gut.
“Assal alive,” he chuckled. He leaned in and gave her shoulder a kiss. “I think I’m in love, my little bear. Finally found a woman what hits like a man.” She shoved him away, to more laughter.
It was then Roswitte saw her. Brown hair. Pale skin. And the bow. Most importantly: the bow.
To most people, it might have been nothing—just another bit of bark, curved and stringed. She knew the curvature, though—the way it bent and angled, the whitewood sheered smooth through hours of care. The string that dipped from metal tip to metal tip was not the hemp or linen found in most, but rawhide, stretched and looped at either end. Even the way the wood had been soaked and flared was a telltale sign. She knew the bow, as she had known the man to make it.
Pescha. The name tasted like bile on her tongue. I trust you burn somewhere, you vile old hound.
Neither of the ones that carried his bow were Pescha, though. The girl had his skin, but the boy had his bow. She did not recognize him, and she would have if she had ever seen him before. One did not wear such flagrant amounts of velvet and blend into a crowd—nor a hat so ridiculous as the one atop his head. The bow was not his. She was certain of that.
Of Pescha she remembered many things. The stink of his breath, the unjust delicacy of his hands, and the ridiculous love he held for a woman that abandoned him. Of his daughter, however, she remembered precious little. What she did remember was how close the girl was to someone that meant a great deal to her lord. The little boy had always run around with her when they were little, before…
Roswitte bumped Fallit with her hip and cleared her throat, inclining her head toward the passing couple. Fallit took the wrong meaning, however, and started to hook his arm around her hip again. Slapping his hand away, she swung around in front of him and nodded back toward the pair. It still took him a moment to follow her meaning, but when his eyes grazed the pair, his brow furrowed in confusion.
“What of them?” he whispered.
“The girl—I think that’s Pescha’s girl.” He looked again, then back to her, uncertain. “I know that’s Pescha’s girl. I'd know that bow anywhere.”
“Aye, and the hair—it’s the mother’s I think. Cute lass. Not so dear as our beloved bear, of course, but…who’s that she’s with? He sort of has her face.”
“I know not, but if she is back…” Her words trailed as she followed the pair down the street. They rounded a corner, and if she was right, they could not afford to lose them. Taking Fallit by the hand, she started after them. “Come on.”
They did not go far. Just off the town square, they stopped to talk for a moment outside the local bakery before heading indoors. She and Fallit waited, despite his insistence that they were probably just out for a bit of bread. She would not hear it. Neither Pescha nor his daughter had been to Verdan in more than five years. Not since he fell from grace with the Lord Matair, with no one to blame but himself.
Her fingers rubbed idly at her bow as they waited. It was not quite so fine as the one young Essa’s companion bore, but it was a thing of beauty all the same, and one of her most cherished possessions. Lord Kasimir may have ordered it made for her, but it had been Pescha that did the crafting. In those days, it had always been Pescha.
When they reemerged from the bakery, the young couple was not alone. Another face accompanied, and one she knew well. So you have thrown in with criminals, Voren? The whole town was rather fond of their skinny baker, just as they had been fond of his chubby father. She was surprised to see him in their company, but it made her task easier.
With Fallit in tow, Roswitte turned and headed back toward the manor. It was a ranger’s duty to be their lord’s eyes and ears, and her eyes had quite a story to tell.
* *
It was a wonderful gift, if ever he had seen one.
Despite the many flaws Essa’s relationship with the Matairs had brought her, Voren had always been grateful to them for the gift of literacy. Her father had never cared to teach her. That had been her mother’s domain, and her mother had abandoned her far too early to ever have been of any help. Voren had found himself in much the same sad vessel, though his place had been secured by an equal lack of ability on the part of his parents, rather than a lack of interest.
From the moment her dear boy had deigned to teach her, Voren had watched Essa’s hunger for the written word grow. At the time, he had seen it for the opportunity it was. When he worked up enough courage not to stutter his way through a sentence, he had asked if she could teach him what she learned. So she did, twice a week, for a year or more. She would come to his house and they would read the things that Rurik had taught her, and t
hey would laugh and play and grow beneath the torchlight.
The knowledge he had taken away from those nights had proved invaluable over the years. It had also left open a window into Essa’s heart for which he would be forever grateful.
Now he had a real treat for her. In truth, he had gotten it for his sister in Mausche, but Essa was here now. Given time, he could find his sister something more appropriate anyhow.
The gift was a book. Kraeten’s History of the Eldest. Despite the advent of the printing press, still a rare find. There were only a half-dozen or so copies he had ever heard of, and he had the luck to have found one in the hands of some wily little eastern merchant that had passed through Verdan on his way north, to Anscharde, the Idasian capital. At the time, he had only scarcely veiled his excitement at his find—and his astonishment at the single silver digar the man asked for it. Clearly, the merchant had no idea of its worth, and he was not about to correct him.
The book was a leftover from an earlier age. Kraeten’s history told of a world centuries before his time, when man had not been the only creature raising walls against the wild. The book itself was centuries old, its author one of the crowning jewels of Lorace during the rise of the second empire. Lorace had been great then. It had been mighty. Not the childish mass of squabbling states it was today. The only reason any of them still called Idasia’s south-westerly neighbors by that name was merely a courtesy to what they had once been. No one could ever see them united now. It was as absurd as imagining the same for the Kuree, across the Dagger Sea. Both were thoughts best left to jesters of the court.
Kraeten’s history, however, told of the age when man first struck out along his path to nationhood. It told of great battles and magical creatures, of races come and races gone, peoples now shells of their former selves. Most importantly, it spoke extensively of those that had once fought alongside the first imperium in their wars of rebellion against the orjuks, when those beasts had claimed the land and fancied themselves civilized monstrosities—a far cry from the bloodthirsty mercenaries of today.
Such a detailed rendering of the early lives of the aswari would surely stir something within Essa. Unless he had over evaluated. He did that sometimes. As at the inn. She was still fairly delicate about certain colored bits of her history, he could see, though she had no reason to be. Her heritage was no more at her control than the wind or the rain. One did not choose their parents.
He would have to gauge her a little more, perhaps, before he parted with his gift. If only she had not been away so long. Yet he could not blame that on her.
A sudden pounding at the door startled Voren from his quandary.
The sun had set hours before, and he was not expecting anyone. He hastily ran over the short list of people it might have been, but he dismissed them all as quickly. Then Hesslebeck slid to the fore. He cursed aloud. Surely there were better explanations than him, but the old man and his nervous laughter were all that lingered. If the old man had been caught and he had given him up to the guardsmen, than he would be lashed for sure. And that was the best scenario.
Sweat beaded along his hairline until he dabbed it away with the sleeve of his shirt. The pounding came on again, beckoning him. He rose to greet it.
Striding through his meager abode, Voren paused only to snatch his father’s dagger off the table. At the door, he calmly demanded to know who called, refusing to open the door one inch until they answered.
“It’s Vardick, Voren, and we are about his lordship’s business. In his name you'll open this door or we will open it for you.” There was no hint of humor in the man’s voice. There never was, with Vardick the Brickheart. The man was captain of the guard for Lord Kasimir—his master-at-arms—and as cold and vile a soldier as ever walked the face of the world.
The chill deepened. From the room beyond, Voren could still hear his mother’s snoring. Would she wake? What would she think of him? The sweat began to bead and drip again, despite his best efforts to will it away. He tossed the dagger aside and wrung his hands, springing through his options and finding none. Hesslebeck, may you burn forever in the blackest abyss, you deceitful, son of a whore. He would be lashed. He might even be hanged, if they knew how much arasyl he had bought. His mother would be mortified. Their family’s name would be dragged through the muck. He could scarcely breathe.
“Last warning, Voren.”
Brickheart’s words stirred a new panic in him, and he quickly flung the door open to the men. He put up his hands in surrender and the men stomped inside. There were six of them in all. The others pressed past him and began to sweep his house, but Brickheart remained with him in the doorway, his scarred, sour face devoid of any hint of grace. Voren, for his part, decided to play the startled host.
“Vardick, good sers—wh, what do you want? What is this about? Have I—sers, please, take care with that—have I done something wrong?”
The soldiers were rustling through his things and two converged on the only other room in the house, where his mother slept. He started toward them, a lecture already on the tip of his tongue. It and he both halted at a flicker of movement—Brickheart’s hand falling to the hilt of his sword. The soldier shook his head and Voren was inclined to back off.
He heard his mother scream as the men went into the room. Well good morning, mother. There was no correcting that now. Supposing he returned to her with head intact, he thought she might very well remove it for him. She shouted at the men and he could hear them apologizing profusely, one ducking back out the door as a wooden spoon sailed past his head. Voren felt blood rush to his cheeks from the embarrassment.
“You have wronged our lord, and the Empire,” Brickheart growled. “And for that you will come with us. Anything?”
One of the guards milling behind him dismissed the question, though it did not seem to dishearten the captain. “No matter,” he said, stepping forward to take Voren by an arm. “Leave the mother. Kall, wait here. Make sure she don't leave, but do not be seen.”
For all the terror flooding through him, Voren was grateful that they came for him in the night. They paraded him through the streets like some unruly whore, dragging him along the dirt paths of the town square, past the church and the tavern and any number of houses as they headed for the manor on the outskirts of Verdan. Had they come for him in the light of day, any one of his neighbors might have seen him. Any number of them might have whispered. They would all know his crime soon enough, he was certain—the longer they went without knowing, the better. It meant more time his mother could go without shame.
Once they had passed through the encampment around Matair’s walls and proceeded into the manor, they rushed him down a side hall and into the deepest darkness Voren had ever known. Light from the torches in the hall dimly illuminated the stairs leading down. He hesitated there. Peering down the steps, he could see nothing. Just blackness. He shuddered, fearing they intended to leave him there. Brickheart barked an order for him to move, but when he hesitated, the captain gave him a shove onto the steps.
He managed to catch his footing on several of them before he slipped entirely. With a scream, he pitched forth into the shadows and flew past the stairs. He flailed, trying to regain himself, but there was nothing to grab hold of. The ground rushed up to greet him, and then all was pain. It was a blinding flash-fire, induced at the greeting of stone and flesh. He screamed, uselessly.
Brickheart and his fellows followed not long after, bearing torches from the hall. Step-by-step they began to illuminate his cell, and soon revealed it was no cell at all. It was, simply enough, the good lord’s wine cellar, and he was surrounded on all sides by kegs and bottles, ready and waiting for noble mouths to partake. What Voren would not have done for a bottle of wine, right then. Anything that might have dulled the pain. His skin burned. His bones throbbed. Only the whimpering need to survive pulled him from thoughts of broken bones or blood spilled.
The men took their torches and lit others in the cellar. Brickheart ha
nded his torch off to one of his fellows and advanced on Voren. Voren curled in, whimpering.
“What have I done?” he asked meekly, cradling a pounding limb against his chest.
“You were seen today in the company of Essa, daughter of Pescha, the drunk. She's a known bedfellow of our lord’s exiled son and his band of misfits. Stand up.”
Voren was too terrified to reply and too stunned to move. Brickheart hauled him up regardless, by the collar of his shirt. He screamed and wriggled, pulling at the hands that seized him, but to no avail. It was like trying to bend cold steel with one’s own hands. The man looked at him with a mix of disgust and loathing.
“Girl's been seen with him as far west as Nirsburg. Nor's she been seen here since her father left in his disgraces. You will tell us where the devil-eyes is. Why he is here. Why now. And you will tell us who has come with them, worm.”
Voren was still taking it in. It was not about the drugs at all. Hesslebeck had not damned him. No. Someone had recognized Essa. Someone had seen him with Essa—something a good deal worse. It had been a mistake to lead her about in the daytime, he realized. In this bloody town one was never alone.
Everyone that knew her knew of her relationship to the little Matair. Bastard. You’ve damned her and you’ve damned me, too. But he did not understand Vardick’s ramble about Nirsburg. Have they been so far? So far, only to return like little rats, creeping under the door.
He knew no more than that. What could he say? What would they think? He had been spending time with Essa, not aiding a traitor. He did not give a damn about Rurik. Rurik could take his exile and his women and his cock and he could shove them all into a pyre. It did not matter to him. He had been glad when the little lord had gone.
But when he had laid eyes on Essa at the Prancing Prixy after seven long years, his heart leapt. It had leapt! After so many years, he had not forgotten. Yet in mere moments that joy had soured to see him there with her. The little lord returned. The rapist. Fear leapt in him. Rurik had not pined for her as he had, all those years. He had other women. He had other ventures. Rurik thought so hard with his cock it finally got him banished, but then somewhere, somehow, he had found her. Essa.
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